Lincoln, by a stroke of the
pen,[9] transferred the battle from the field to the halls of
legislation. In view of the "Emancipation proclamation" as issued by
Mr. Lincoln, and the invaluable service rendered by black troops[10]
in the rebellion, legislation upon the status of the former slave
could not be avoided. The issue could not be evaded; like Banquo's
ghost, it would not down. There were not wanting men, even when the
war had ended and the question of chattel slavery had been forever
relegated to the limbo of "things that were," who were willing still
to toy with half-way measures, to cater to the caprices of that
treacherous yet brave power--the South. They had not yet learned that
Southern sentiment was fundamentally revolutionary, dynamic in the
extreme, and could not be toyed with as with a doll-baby. So the
statesmen proceeded to manufacture the "Reconstruction policy"--a
policy more fatuous, more replete with fatal concessions and far more
fatal omissions than any ever before adopted for the acceptance and
governance of a rebellious people on the one hand and a newly made,
supremely helpless people on the other. It is not easy to regard with
equanimity the blunders of the "Reconstruction policy" and the
manifold infamies which have followed fast upon its adoption.

The South scornfully rejected and successfully nullified the
legislative will of the victors.

Judge Albion W. Tourgee says of this policy in his book called _A
Fool's Errand_: "It was a magnificent sentiment that underlay it
all,--an unfaltering determination, an invincible defiance to all that
had the seeming of compulsion or tyranny. One cannot but regard with
pride and sympathy the indomitable men, who, being conquered in war,
yet resisted every effort of the conqueror to change their laws, their
customs, or even the _personnel_ of their ruling class; and this, too,
not only with unyielding stubbornness, but with success. One cannot
but admire the arrogant boldness with which they charged the nation
which had overpowered them--even in the teeth of her legislators--with
perfidy, malice, and a spirit of unworthy and contemptible revenge.
How they laughed to scorn the Reconstruction Acts of which the wise
men boasted! How boldly they declared the conflict to be
irrepressible, and that white and black could not and should not live
together as co-ordinate ruling elements! How lightly they told the
tales of blood--of the Masked Night-Riders, of